She's A Lady
by LeytonBrulianNaley
Summary: Puck has a huge problem in his life, and she's it. First chapter is not M, but the subsequent ones will be.
1. Prelude

_So guys, this is my first story, but I'm happy to be writing about this couple. They're just too cute to resist. This story will definitely be AU, but I hope everyone will enjoy it. The first chapter is short, but the ones to follow will be much longer. Chapter One is just like a prologue. Well, enjoy! ...I hope._

_Disclaimer: I do not, nor will I ever, own Glee or the characters in this story. Unfortunately._

"What are you doing here?"

I swear to God, Allah, and whatever else there is out there that when those five little words were spoken from her mouth, they could make me feel just about anything. That minuscule sentence had ripped apart my soul, pleased me, enraged me, and made me feel a whole cacophony of emotions during the past year and a half. I hated that, and I hated her for it.

My crush on her makes no logical sense. Before Finn started dating her, I threw slushies in her face every chance I got. I'm pretty sure the only reason I stopped was for the fear that Finn would beat my ass if I didn't back off. But then again, I never imagined that I would have a crush on my best friend's girlfriend. I mean, come on. I _**am**_ Noah Puckerman.

However, slowly but surely, I started doing things to see her. I told myself that she wasn't really the reason that I joined Glee. I spent hours convincing myself that she wasn't the face I was looking for after I made some rare spectacular move during a game, but the fact of the matter is I couldn't lie to myself anymore. I had to accept the truth.

It happened sometime between Thanksgiving and Hanukah. Finn's stupid ass started dating her right around Thanksgiving, so of course it was then that I started noticing her as well. I noticed things that I shouldn't have even thought about. Like how she raises her eyebrows when she's trying to be cute. Like how she looks so happy when she's breathless after an amazing finish to a number. And I definitely shouldn't have noticed the soft curve of her waist. But despite the number of reasons that I shouldn't have noticed these things, I did anyways. And there is only one explanation for that.

I, Noah Puckerman, was in love with Rachel Berry.


	2. You Can't Always Get What You Want

_Hello all! I know that it's been a while since I've updated. I was writing and rewriting a bunch of different versions of chapter 2, but I think that I finally like this one, or at least can live with it being read. I hope you all enjoy it! I know that it doesn't have a lot of Puckleberry yet, but I promise you that it's setting the stage. Enjoy, read, and review! Love, Mere _

_Disclaimer: I do not, nor will I ever, own Glee or the characters in this story. Unfortunately_

_***_

Back story? There's a lot of it. Well, no. That's putting it modestly. There's a fucking shitload of it. But I'll break it down to you like this:

After sectionals, Quinn got bigger and bigger at faster and faster rates. And I'm not the kind of guy who gets all hot and bothered by a baby bump. Despite that, I stuck around. For the kid, you know? So I took care of her, and even got a job at Pizza Hut to help out with all the medical stuff. Quinn and I were doing really well. I liked her a lot. I mean, who wouldn't? She's beautiful and smart and funny and those are some definite turn on's. Life was good for a while. Finn even forgave us and everything went back to how it should have been in the first place. But of course, as quickly as everything got good, it changed.

It was after football practice one day and Finn had just talked me out of throwing some kid in the dumpster. It was hard to pull off this whole good guy thing, so I was glad that Finn was there to help me out sometimes. He's just a naturally good guy. All noble and shit. We're pretty much complete opposites, but it works for us. Anyways, we're in the locker room and he's getting dressed while I'm sitting on one of the benches trying to balance a pen on my nose when I get a call on my cell phone.

_I put my hands up. They're playing my song, the butterflies fly away. I'm nodding my head like-_

I looked up sheepishly at Finn and he squinted down at me and said, "Dude. Really? Really?"

I rolled my eyes. "Quinn chose it, dude! You know I'm not good enough with technology to figure out how to change it back." Then I opened my phone to see Quinn's ID picture smiling back at me.

"Hey babe! What's up?"

There was screaming and shuffling and something that sounded like a moo and then I heard, "The baby's coming, Puck."

I dropped the phone. I wasn't ready for this. I had no idea what to do with a baby. I have no idea how to help Quinn even have the damn thing. What the fuck am I supposed to do?

Finn scrambled to pick the phone up from where I'd dropped it on the locker room floor. He took notes for me while I tried to calm down. By the time he hung up, I had gone from numb to hyperventilating.

"Dude, I don't know what to do with a kid! You have to feed it and change it and care for it and you and I both know how I am with the whole caring situation. What if I drop it or sit on it or lose it or leave it at McDonald's like my parents did to me? Or what if it doesn't love me or I do something wrong and Quinn hates me for it or-"

The slap to my cheek knocked me out of my rant and I looked my best friend in the face. His eyes were full of worry and my stomach dropped at the sight.

"Puck, you have to know that as scared as you are, Quinn has to be twenty times worse. She's got a little human trying to get out of her two months early."

I paused. Fuck. "Shit, man. That's right. She's only a month into the third trimester. She's early. The baby can't be ready to come out, because it's not time yet."

He slapped me again. "Look. The baby IS coming and you ARE going to be a father. Now we need to get your ass over to the hospital or you can't bet your mohawk that Quinn WILL kill you."

"You're probably right. And I can't lose my mohawk on top of everything else."

The drive to the hospital was quiet and tense. I was freaking out about just about anything baby related and Finn was freaking out about me freaking out. But when we finally got there, it felt like everything was moving in slow motion.

We got out of the truck and headed straight up to the floor where babies get born, whatever that place is called. I could hear Quinn's screams from all the way down the hall. I ran, following the noise to wherever she was, ignoring the calls of nurses that I passed. No one was going to tell me that I couldn't go that way. I'll go wherever I want when my girlfriend and baby are concerned.

When I finally reached Quinn's bedside, a look of relief flooded her face. "What took you so long, you Lima loser?"

I chuckled a little at the old nickname but the laughter all faded when Quinn started screaming again. She squeezed my hand and I looked up at the doctor standing over her. "What's happening?"

"Sir," the old man said to me. He was mid-sixties and had gnarled old hands and a reassuring smile. "You need to scrub up or you can't be in here."

"Okay, I will, I just need to know that she's okay before I go anywhere," I replied, trying to keep my voice even.

"Sir, I'll tell you everything once you're safe to be in here."

"TELL ME WHAT'S FUCKING HAPPENING!" I exploded. "I need to know."

He looked at me with fear in his eyes. "She's going into premature labor. It's much too early for this, but it is what it is. We can't stop it. All we can do now is hope and pray that they both come out of this okay."

I looked at him. "What are their chances?"

He sighed. "Hers is quite good. I'm not so optimistic about the child, though."

"Fuck," I said, under my breath. I sighed, and took a deep calming breath. I ran a hand through my mohawk before I bent down to talk to Quinn. "Baby, it's gonna be okay. You're gonna do so great and we're going to be the best two parents in the world. This kid is going to be the most spoiled child in the world, but for that to happen, you gotta pull through this babe."

"You promise?" she asked me, her big eyes hopeful.

"I swear, baby. I swear. We're gonna be great parents. Right now, though, I have to go scrub up, but I'll be back as fast as I can, okay?"

She nodded as another contraction took over her and she lapsed into a world of pain. I kissed her nose and rushed away to scrub up.

By the time I got back, the dynamic in the room had changed.

"She needs to push!" The doctor was yelling at me, expecting me to get Quinn to push this baby out.

"Quinn, you have to give a big push. Can you do that? Can you give me one good push?"

Her face contorted in pain and I knew she was trying to push as hard as she could, because she was practically trying to squeeze my hand off. "I can't do it, Noah. It hurts so much."

I squeezed her hand back to tell her I was there. "Don't you give up, Quinn. You have to pull through this." Tears sprang to my eyes as I pleaded with my girlfriend to stay strong. I needed her to pull through this. I needed her to be okay. The baby too. They were the only family I had now. My mom hated me ever since she found out that I hooked up with a babe that wasn't Jewish and I know that Quinn's been out on her own for a long time. We were the only family each other had. Quinn had to be okay or…I didn't know what I'd do. "I need you to do this."

And she did. She pushed with all the muscles she had in her little body and the doctor let out a triumphant, "The head is crowning!"

I smiled and Quinn laughed with joy. I kissed her forehead. "You're doing good babe, you're doing so good. One more push. Come on, just one more."

"Ungh!" she screamed and as the head came out, the doctor looked up at me with fear.

My heart felt like it was going to explode. I couldn't take this. What the fuck was happening and why the fuck was it happening to us?

Quinn squeezed the rest of the body out and the doctor cradled the little baby in his arms. Quinn smiled at me. "Noah! I did it. We have a baby! Oh my god, I'm so excited. We haven't even talked about names…" she trailed off, seeing the looks on the faces of myself and the doctor. "What's wrong?" she asked, her voice breaking.

The doctor was the first to gain his composure. "I'm sorry, Quinn, I truly am, but your baby..."

"My baby what?" she asked. There was no reply. "What's wrong?" she asked through tears.

Still there was no answer.

"**Fucking answer me**!" she screamed, with tears in both her eyes and her voice.

The doctor looked up at us with his eyes full of tears as well. "Your baby was a stillborn. I'm so sorry, but there was nothing I could do. I'll leave you alone for a few minutes."

As she left, Quinn collapsed into my arms. Her tears soaked through my shirt in minutes and I had to use everything I had to hold back tears as well.

"You _promised_, Noah," she said when she could finally talk. "You promised."

I felt my throat close up as I tried to tell her just how sorry I was that I couldn't deliver on that promise. Because I really was.

***

The next few months were hard ones for Quinn and me. We decided not to have a funeral for the baby, or even name it. It would have just made the pain worse, for the both of us. But that didn't stop our fighting. It was like, without the baby, we had nothing in common. I thought I had loved Quinn for who she was, but I think it was the baby that had really been holding us together in the first place and now, without it, we were falling apart.

We both took a while off from school. I knew that it would take Quinn longer than it would take me. I went back about two weeks after the baby was "born". I just couldn't take being in the same house as her anymore. She was so angry and there was nothing I could do about. All she would do was yell at me, and I just couldn't take being sad anymore. Quinn couldn't get enough of it. I knew it would be months before she went back, if she went back at all.

The day I went back to William McKinley was a day right after Quinn and I had had a particularly bad fight. She wanted me to be more "supportive" of her in this time of need. Excuse the hell out of me if I don't understand how I can get more supportive than I already was. As I left my house, where Quinn was living with me until she could convince her parents to let her come home, both of the women I love were glaring at me for once. My mom was mad that I was leaving her alone with Quinn for eight hours and Quinn was just mad that I was moving on with my life.

"Well don't you two look lovely this morning," I commented as I went to kiss both of them on the forehead. They both shied away from my advances.

"Where do you think you're going, Noah?" they chorused, and then looked at each other in surprise.

"School. It's this horrible place, but I don't think anything could be worse than spending an entire day with the two of you again," I spat at them, as I gathered my things.

"Noah," Quinn said with a quiet anger. "If you leave, we're done."

I opened the door. "Then I guess we're done, Quinn. I can't sit around her and mope anymore. It sucks that the baby died. I'm just as torn up as you are. But I'm not going to let it destroy me like you're obviously willing to."

She scoffed. "I'm not letting it destroy me! I'm grieving! It's a natural process."

It was my turn to scoff. "Quinn, you're moping, and I, for one, cannot stand it anymore. If you were serious about us being done, have your stuff gone by the time I get home. If not, that's awesome because I'm not ready to give up on us yet, but frankly, I'm done being the only one that's trying. Bye babes."

And with that I closed the door.

***

Nothing at school was different. Not physically anyways. But the way that people looked at me? That was different. There was no longer praise in the face of the jocks or sadness in the eyes of the girls I had loved and left or even fear in the eyes of the geeks. There was just pity, in the eyes of everyone. And I hated it.

I got to my locker and opened it. I felt like the world stopped as I did. There were pictures from happier times in there. Pictures of Quinn and I smiling on the beach, pictures of the baby's sonograms, pictures of the football team, which I'm sure I've gotten kicked off of with all the absences I'd accumulated.

I sighed and closed the locker door without putting away anything. I wouldn't be opening it again for a while, I knew. As I closed the door, I was greeted with the face of Rachel Berry.

"Noah," she said, in her soft voice. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I replied, not wanting to talk to anyone, but especially not her. "Why wouldn't I be?"

She looked a little taken aback. "You've just been gone so long and I heard about what happened with the baby, and I…"

She trailed off. "Noah," she said, even softer than the first time. "Come with me."

She took my hand and led me somewhere. We could have been going anywhere. I had no idea, because I was trying so hard to keep my tears in my eyes where they belonged.

"Okay," she said.

I looked up and saw that we were in the choir room. The whole Glee club smiled down at me. I just stood there, gaping at them for a few moments. "How…?" I started.

Kurt was the first to speak up. "We heard from Quinn that you were coming back to school. She said that she knew that you would need a friend today, on your first day back, and that there were a lot of reasons that she couldn't be that friend for you. So she asked us to help you out instead."

And with that, I let the tears fall.


End file.
